Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Summary (goodreads.com): Through more
than 300 glorious illustrations from library collections around the globe,
you'll discover a wealth of book lore in these pages and gain a new
appreciation for the role of books in human society, from our earliest attempts
at writing and recording information to the newest electronic books; from
sumptuous illuminated and bejeweled medieval manuscripts to Gutenberg and the
invention of movable type; from the diverse arts and crafts of bookmaking to
the building of magnificent libraries for housing treasured volumes; from the
ancient epic of Gilgamesh to the plays of Shakespeare and the tales of Beatrix
Potter; and from the earliest illustrated books to revolutionary science texts.

My Review:

This might be the best book
in print today. It is completely fascinating. If you have even the slightest
interest in the history of books this is a must read. I think this would have
been a great text for my history of the printed book class. It has a chapter on
everything from ancient scrolls to the medieval codex, the invention of movable
type to modern typography, from bookbinding to paper making, from Shakespeare
to Children’s literature, and literally everything in between. Seriously, I
cannot praise this book enough! The chapters are extremely informative, but not
in a way that overwhelms the reader. Almost every single page has a photo,
illustration, or engraving with a background under it. There is just so much in
this Book of Books that to fully appreciate
it has taken me 3 months. The only reason it didn’t take me longer is that I
finally had to give it back to the library or they’d have had to start fining
me (I will be buying a copy of this to study as soon as I can)!